Rambus adds Samsung to list of infringers

By
06.08.2005 :: 8:10AM EST

I'm beginning to believe that Rambus has more lawyers than engineers. The fab-less memory IP company has added another memory producer to its list of intellectual property violators. This time the alleged culprit is Samsung, and Rambus says that its IP can be found in a number of Samsung's products. Take your pick: DDR2, GDDR2, GDDR3 … Basically, every high-speed product that Samsung makes supposedly uses Rambus IP that has not been paid for. Amazingly, the suit is supposed to have no impact on the license agreements that Samsung has with Rambus to produce RDRAM and XDR-based memory solutions. Rambus has already filed similar suits against Hynix, Infineon, Inotera, and Nanya. It's hard to figure out who the good guys are here. Many believe Rambus has long held a technological advantage, but has not made smart business moves that would have taken its technology mainstream; the pricing scheme coupled with the Intel deal in the early P4 days is a prime example. However, a number of the defendants in Rambus' suites have been found guilty of committing some serious antitrust infractions, so it's hard to cry for them. I hope Rambus, a very young memory company, can hasten the day when it can focus on engineering new memory technologies instead of month by month court decisions. For more information, visit EE Times.

Rambus is looking like Apple(8:57am EST Wed Jun 08 2005)Apple's problem was that even though they had a superior/easier-to-use Operating System, depending on your opinion of course, their downfall came from the decision not license out to anyone. If Rambus keeps it up, companies may start to pass on their technology, even though it may be superior. – by Falconfira

oijiojji(9:08am EST Wed Jun 08 2005)Trouble with Rambus was their sly particiaption in standards bodies and then quitely patenting most probable other peoples work shared in the conferences etc.. – by ioihiih

Rambus(10:43am EST Wed Jun 08 2005)Rambus what a name sounds like a crazy drunk. – by forest grump

Way to profit(11:10am EST Wed Jun 08 2005)Don't make memory – – Make lawsuits!!If I did not already know RAMBUS was a Japanese company I would think they were American. (For their level of ligitigious behavior)Heck – I could beat RAMBUS at thier own game without hiring a single engineer – Just hire a whole bunch of lawyers and start suing people. – by Too honest to do it

rambus (11:11am EST Wed Jun 08 2005)rambus interesting not/ what makes me laugh geeks trying to compare linux with windows. its like a kid opening a present on christmas open the windows xp its ready to play with. open linux breakout the instrutions not a happy christmas. – by Windownator

Interesting strategy(12:02pm EST Wed Jun 08 2005)Samsung has been Rambus' “best friend”, or at least as close to a friend as they have, among the “memory makers”. What appears to have broken the “friendship” was Rambus' settlement with Infineon. Infineon won much lower licensing fees than Samsung has been paying. Samsung stated publicly they were going to demand fee reductions.

This appears to be a negotiation strategy by Rambus, given Samsung's licensing agreement is due for renewal this summer.

Rambus' general consel stated “We didn't think it was going to be renewed on agreeable terms, so we terminated it and filed the lawsuit. …We concluded that we were not going to reach an agreement on the patent issues and that we may as well include them in the case.”

So much for the new “work with the industry” Rambus their new CEO has been advertising. – by Marketman

omg(12:27pm EST Wed Jun 08 2005)They're still kicking around? I thought they would have died off by now. – by Bye bye